Will Pfeifer: Three beat the Movie Man in Oscar contest

Monday

Feb 23, 2009 at 12:01 AMFeb 23, 2009 at 11:21 PM

The Movie Man took a beating in this year’s Oscar contest. I missed two of Sunday night’s winners, thinking “In Bruges” would take the prize for Best Original Screenplay (“Milk” won) and flipping a coin to pick Mickey Rourke for Best Actor (Sean Penn won — again, for “Milk”).

Will Pfeifer

The Movie Man took a beating in this year’s Oscar contest.

I missed two of Sunday night’s winners, thinking “In Bruges” would take the prize for Best Original Screenplay (“Milk” won) and flipping a coin to pick Mickey Rourke for Best Actor (Sean Penn won — again, for “Milk”).

Six right out of eight isn’t bad, but it wasn’t enough to win — especially considering three entrants had perfect scores.

Topping that list was Paul Jarnagin of Denver, Colo. He not only picked every winner, he was off by a mere 60 seconds in the tie-breaker, predicting that ABC’s telecast would run three hours and 31 minutes. The final credits rolled at the three hours, 30 minutes mark.

So how did a guy from Colorado enter (and win) this Rockford, Ill., contest?

“I usually just Google all the contests,” Jarnagin explained in a phone interview Monday. “It’s sort of a hobby of mine.”

He said out of 24 Oscar categories, he picked 20 correctly, choosing the night’s big winner, “Slumdog Millionaire,” to win eight and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” to win three.

As of Monday morning, Jarnagin said he was still checking the Web for other contests he entered, but with numbers like that, the Movie Man’s likely wasn’t the only one he conquered.

“I’ve won 15 others,” he said. “So far.”

Sue Mainville of Loves Park, Ill., also went eight-for-eight, missing the running time tiebreaker by a mere three minutes. She said her favorite movie of the year was “Slumdog Millionaire.”

“I just liked the uplifting ending, that it was a destiny sort of thing,” she said.

Mainville, who is the elementary math coordinator for Rockford (Ill.) School District, said though she correctly predicted Penélope Cruz would win Best Supporting Actress, the performance that really impressed her was Viola Davis’ supporting turn in “Doubt.”

“I thought as far as acting goes, it was just amazing,” Mainville said.

The other perfect entrant was Brad Milner of Rockford, whose running time was off by nine minutes. Those three, along with about 20 others who only missed one category, will receive certificates declaring “I Beat the Movie Man.” In all, 289 entries were received for this year’s contest.

Will Pfeifer writes about new DVDs on Tuesdays and older ones on Fridays. Contact him at wpfeifer@rrstar.com or 815-987-1244. Read his Movie Man blog at blogs.e-rockford.com/movieman/. See video reviews by the Movie Man at rrstar.com/multimedia.